


Between the Candle and the Star

by Flamesong



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst and Feels, Candles, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, so many candles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28163529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flamesong/pseuds/Flamesong
Summary: For ten thousand years, Salem has kept the gods away from Remnant. To protect an infinite future, any price is acceptable, but still... the cost, after all this time, is staggering. So many innocent lives have been cut short to prevent unity and peace. There are ways to cope with the necessity and the guilt, and to do what she can to atone.But she doesn't have to do it alone.
Relationships: Salem/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 12
Kudos: 15





	Between the Candle and the Star

It’s dark in Evernight Castle. 

It always is, to some extent – otherwise the name wouldn’t fit – but this is a darker night than usual. And right now, this is not the calm, comforting dimness of Salem’s sanctuary, but nearly pitch black in every place not in direct view of a window to the pink-tinted skies beyond. 

What happened?

In all the months Yang has lived here, she’s never seen the place like this before. Not just dark, but silent and empty as well. She’d like to think she’s become good friends with Hazel, at least – especially given the ever-relevant bonding activity of trashing Ozpin that they share – and also Emerald, though the rest of the team have been slower to accept her. Yang isn’t sure she’d even  _ want _ to become friends with Tyrian, for as much as it might provide some protection from that maniac’s stinger, it would say even more about the kind of person she’d have become. 

And there’s Her Grace too, of course. Surprisingly friendly, despite her fearsome reputation. It hadn’t taken long for Yang to realize that the imperious persona she put on for meetings was just that, a facade all too easy to crack if the witch were caught unawares. Just last week she’d managed to startle Salem by walking up behind while she was lost in thought, and she’d reacted just as any normal human would. 

Yang’s footsteps on the dark crystal flooring are barely audible even through the absolute silence around, but they’re enough to tell her she’s moving, making progress through the inky black. The top floor of the castle is simple enough to navigate, thankfully, and before long she stands before what she’s reasonably confident is Hazel’s door. 

Her knock gets no response. A soft call of her fellow agent’s name, the same. He isn’t here. 

Neither is anyone else, it seems. The whole residential wing seems abandoned, when just yesterday half the team had been present and there’s been no meeting to assign new missions. That’s very strange. 

Yang is alone in the midst of darkness, for the second time just this year. When she’d turned away from Ozpin’s side, finally decided his latest injustice was a step too far and left his service, she’d been alone then. Her friends hadn’t followed her after she declared her intent to defect. But they still might, in time. Eventually that madman will reach the tipping point for others in his group as well, and Yang has a standing assurance that any of her friends and teammates who want to rejoin her will have a place here waiting for them. 

But Salem herself must be here, somewhere. According to Hazel, she hasn’t gone on a mission personally in years. She’ll know what’s going on with the lights. And she’s apparently not in her personal quarters either, but it’s not far to her next most frequent location, the meeting hall. 

Yang pushes open the heavy door with a loud creak and slips inside. The long windows let in a fuchsia tint, still dim even well past dawn as the heavy cloud layer filters out most of the sunlight, but it’s enough to see Salem sitting cross-legged on the floor by the left wall. She looks up as Yang enters, and seems surprised to see her. 

To Salem’s right, all along the base of the wall, the candles that light the castle are glowing as they always do. But from her position onward, and everywhere else Yang has passed by today, they rest unlit. 

“Uh, hi,” Yang greets her awkwardly, still trying to take in the sight. 

Salem looks like she’s about to say something for a moment, but finally only sighs and nods her head. “This is your first winter with me,” she says. “You wouldn’t know.”

Yang pads closer, and once Salem waves to indicate permission, she sits down next to her on the cold floor. “Know… what?”

“The central candle up there, the red one–” Salem points toward the far end of the room, behind her seat at the head of the table, where no such candle now stands. “Is enchanted to burn for exactly one year, and then go out. It’s… a reminder, of sorts. When that one dies, I put out every other flame in the castle, and then I relight them, one by one. I grant a leave of absence to anyone who asks for one around this time, but you wouldn’t have known it was coming.”

“But… if I may ask… why? I did notice everyone else was gone.”

Salem hesitates again, just for a moment. “I suppose, since you saw so much in the lamp, there’s no need to hold anything back,” she says softly. “And again when you first came to me, I explained myself, and you joined the cause. You know I do not do all this by choice. I was forced into the role of villain, but it is a role I dare not abandon, not when the world is at stake.”

She picks up the next unlit candle and looks into its blackened wick with an expression Yang can’t read. “But I also dare not abandon the conscience that I have so painstakingly kept alive for all these years, for I still have hope that one day my time of destruction may yet cease. And so, I honor all those lives which end by my hand, and I remember them even when no one else can.”

“By lighting candles for them,” Yang realizes.  _ “Every _ candle in this place? That must be…”

“Many thousands, by now. I add more every year. The height of each candle corresponds to the severity of the event it commemorates.” Salem offers the one in her hand to Yang, a mid-size candle as compared to the rest. “Hold this. Each one contains a memory. When I light it…”

Salem touches one finger to the candle’s wick, and a flame springs up with magic. Yang looks into it, transfixed by the dancing light, and then the sight before her fades out into a vision of somewhere else. 

She’s still sitting comfortably, but now atop a rocky outcropping high over a city nestled against the cliff face. A city without any of the trappings of modern life, built entirely of wood and stone rather than steel. Half the rooftops are on fire, and the blaze is only spreading wider before their eyes. Grimm rampage through the streets, simultaneously drawn by the fear and repelled by the flames, and what few brave fighters stand against them are easily overpowered. 

After less than a minute, the vision fades and Yang is deposited back where she began, and she lets go of the candle for Salem to place it back into the line beside the rest. “What was that?” she asks. 

“The town of Drevann,” Salem answers simply. “The last victim in a series of unsolved arsons which helped destabilize a budding kingdom on what is now called Menagerie.” She looks into the tiny flame a little longer, then shifts her body a few inches to the left to face the next candle in line. “It was many thousands of years ago.”

“And that whole city… is one candle?” Yang once again gazes down the row toward the double doors, and tries to imagine the sheer number of flames that usually line every room and hall. Near the door, one catches her eye. “What’s that giant one over there?”

Salem follows where she points, and sighs. “The collapse of Anima. An empire so grand, its name became synonymous with the continent it occupied. There’s so much history that no one remembers anymore, but it still affects the present day. I try to keep as much of it alive as I can… but even I have limits.”

She picks up the next candle. “That’s part of why I do this every year. Not only to honor the dead, but literally just to remember. If not for me, no one would know except the lamp, and maybe Oz. The lamp’s uses are limited, and Oz never tells the truth, so all this truly would be lost.”

“Well, if you want some company, I’ll stay and remember with you,” Yang offers. 

Salem’s eyebrows shoot up. “You don’t have to,” she says. “Everyone else is out enjoying themselves about now. I believe Hazel typically goes to Vacuo, Watts to Vale… Tyrian, I don’t know and I prefer not to ask… You could visit your friends again, if you wished. Stay with them until the castle is lit again, and then repeat my offer to them on your way back?”

Yang considers this. It  _ is _ tempting to see her sister, her teammates, the rest of her friends again. They hadn’t parted on bad terms, but if they’re still with Oz it could be… awkward, to say the least. Still, it would be nice to talk in person again, instead of only via scroll. 

“How long?” she asks. An important consideration, especially if she’s traveling alone. 

But Salem has already lit the next candle and she sits in a trance for a minute, reliving another memory of ages past. When she comes out of it and gently places the flickering light back in its row, only then does Yang repeat the question. 

“Lately, it’s been taking me eight days to get through them all,” Salem answers. “I don’t sleep or take a break until it’s done. Some years are a little faster or a little slower, but eight days has been the norm these past couple centuries.”

Whatever reaction Salem expected from telling her this, Yang is sure it wasn’t to shuffle closer and hand her the next candle before she could take it herself. “I’ll stay,” she declares. “Someone has to. That’s too long to be alone with nothing but bad memories.”

Yang keeps her hand on the candle as Salem lights it, and once again she’s whisked away to the past. This time she’s in the air, gliding on the back of what looks like a giant nevermore, slowly circling a massive palace complex. The Grimm bird swoops lower, and Yang watches in helpless horror as what  _ feels _ like her own hand reaches forward and sprays a gout of fire downward onto the dark green hanging banners on the palace wall. 

“Gods,” she murmurs as she comes out of the vision. “That one felt too real.”

“That was one of the many,  _ many _ times Ozma has set himself up as a king or emperor of some sort. It gives him an excuse to have a certain crown and scepter on his person. I put a stop to it, but without any  _ real _ success.”

“No Relics,” Yang says what the witch had meant. “I’m always in favor of killing Oz, but doing it like that must cause a lot of collateral damage.”

“It always does.” Salem sets the candle down and takes another. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave here, find something more pleasant for the next week?”

She lights the candle before waiting for answer, but when she comes out of the memory Yang is still there. That’s all the response she needs. 

“Very well, then. Stay, if you wish.”

Salem shuffles another foot to the side, catching up to where her thin line of flame now ends. The side of her leg brushes against Yang’s and the witch flinches, but neither makes a move to slide apart. 

Yang hands her a candle. “I can’t be here for eight days straight, but I’ll be here. I still don’t know if I’ve fully comprehended the scale of all this, but… you don’t have to experience it all alone.”

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Salem nods. “It’s been a long time since anyone had the dedication to join me at this time. Thank you, Yang.”

* * *

Four days later, they’ve covered half the castle, just as Salem predicted that first morning. The winding route that leads steadily forward in time through century after century of destruction and despair exited the main hall and twisted around much of the uppermost floor before leading them down spiral stairs, through storage rooms and kitchens, down further deep into the stone of the mesa beneath them. 

Yang has stayed by her leader’s side as much as she’s been able to, with breaks to sleep and eat, and to fetch an occasional item that either she or Salem desired. The pillows from Yang’s bed have traveled with them since the second day as seat cushions, to make the seemingly endless stream of terror and guilt at least physically more bearable. 

They spend much of the time in silence, taking in one memory after another. In the beginning Yang had asked frequently about the sights, but it became clear that Salem tired of explaining millennia of painful history, and Yang learned to focus on the emotion and the impact of each event rather than the sordid political details. 

“That’s all for this room,” Salem declares, setting down one final candle by the doorframe. She stands, and offers a hand to pull Yang up as well. “If you need a break, you may want to take one now. Next up is the crypt.”

“Nah, I’m good. Lead the way.”

Salem looks at her with surprise. “Are you sure? It’s… not the most welcoming place, especially for mortals.”

“I said I’d stay with you. Sounds like you’re about to need the company more than ever.” Yang already has the two pillows under her arm, and gestures with the other for Salem to lead onward. 

“As you wish.” Salem takes them to a nearby staircase and descends to the lowest level, stopping only for a single candle every few feet. “After this, we start heading back up again. We’ve watched a good five thousand years of my operations, now. But there’s more than just visions down here.”

She pushes open a heavy stone door, and sits down on the floor just inside. Yang takes a moment to look around at the surprisingly spacious hall around them, supported by columns every so far, with rows of sarcophagi each topped with a single tall candle. Unlike the plain white wax everywhere else in the castle, the ones here form a rainbow of colors – clearly, the aura colors of each person interred here. 

“Who are all these people?”

Salem looks up, and indicates for Yang to take a seat by her side once more. “You’re about to find out,” she says simply. “Former agents, mostly. Those who had no families to return them to, or whose families would not take them back. I’ve employed a lot of outcasts. A lot of faunus, as well as humans who found themselves discriminated against for whatever reason the ones in power made up during that century… I did my best for them.”

The white memory candles are sparser down here, just a few between each row of sarcophagi and around the pillars, and they make a full circuit in just under an hour. And then it’s time to relight the vibrantly colored wax, and Yang is brought along to a new type of visions. Instead of fear and destruction, each vignette is filled with bright moments of joyful memory tinged with an ever-present bittersweet sense of loss. 

First, a young woman dressed in violet, leaning against her viewpoint’s side, then in an empty field with magic springing from her fingertips. Vexia, an early Spring Maiden and Salem’s adopted daughter. 

A woman with deer antlers and a playful smile, twirling a metal staff. Anseth, who’d fought for an end to faunus slavery and mercilessly kneecapped any human who tried to stop her. 

Two men, one human and the other with a fluffy tail, walking hand in hand through a brightly lit hallway and greeting Salem as they passed. An old woman with an eyepatch, leaning on a cane and pointing back and forth across a heavily marked map of Remnant. A man who unhinged his jaw like a snake and retrieved an entire scroll tube from within his throat. A team of five, the horned man in the center popping open a bottle of champagne. 

Names, faces, a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation accompanying each, down each row and up the next with each new flame burning the same aura color as its wax. One after another, Yang and Salem holding candles between them, until almost without noticing they find themselves holding hands along the entire journey. 

And as they approach the back wall of the crypt, Salem’s grip on her hand grows tighter with every step. She lags behind, and when Yang turns she finds Salem’s face wet with tears. 

“Are you okay? Do you need to take a break?”

Salem shakes her head weakly. “I’m fine. Much better than a usual year when I come down here. It’s just…” She waves her free hand toward the sarcophagi ahead of them. 

Four of them, right up against each other, shorter in length than the rest, each topped with a cluster of candles in blue, orange, green, and pink. 

“Oh…” Yang realizes suddenly who these are for. Without even thinking, she pulls Salem into a tight hug and doesn’t let go. After a moment she can feel Salem returning the embrace, and leaning her head on her shoulder as she begins to sob quietly. 

“I come down here, sometimes, and talk to them,” Salem practically whispers. “I tell them about new agents, successful missions, anything important that happens. I’ve always, deep down, held out a tiny bit of hope that one day, if I were to take the staff…”

Yang continues to hold her close, and with every passing moment it seems Salem sinks deeper into her arms. “One day,” she echoes softly. “That’s why we’re here, to keep their memories alive. As long as you have that, they’re still with you.” She caresses Salem’s back, and for a while the pair’s agonizing journey is put on hold for a much-appreciated period of comfort. 

They finally separate, only to sit down together and rest back against a coffin under its candle’s pale pink light. “Thank you,” Salem murmurs. “I needed that more than I realized.”

Yang gives her a smile. “And you tried to send me away for the week.”

“This is not an easy path you’ve chosen. But every so often, it is necessary that someone follows it. Like my own path, I suppose, protecting Remnant from the gods by keeping the people divided. The cost is great, and not just for the ones my candles honor.”

“For you as well,” Yang finishes for her. “But, seeing as I’m not so much into wanton destruction anyway, I think being an emotional support agent suits me well.”

“And knowing as much as you do, you’ll be good at the job.”

“I’ll do my best.” Yang nods, and offers a hand. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be right there with you to meet your daughters.”

* * *

“One question,” Yang says, staring out the window to the Grimm pools far below. “Why now? Is the start of this process an anniversary of something?”

“No, not really,” Salem admits. “If it were, I’d do it around early fall. That’s when my mission began. But now… Shortly before midwinter seemed appropriate, that’s all. When the light is fading and the world is harshest, and the worst is yet to come but if we can push through that, then light and warmth will return.”

“And you bring light and warmth back through lighting candles. That makes sense.”

“Yes, though that’s not all. Think about the rest of the world’s perspective. When their unity and their hope is fading – because of me – and for all they know, the worst of my destruction is still ahead, people always survive. Even through the worst, they survive, and they rebuild. They’ve been rebuilding for ten millennia.”

Salem invites her agent to sit beside her again, but Yang doesn’t move. They’re near the end of the circuit, back in the main meeting hall and slowly working their way up the right side, but despite her earlier enthusiasm and the end finally in sight, Yang has only become more apprehensive as they go on. 

Salem lights a few candles on her own, taking in visions of disasters not long past, now set against familiar backdrops of the four kingdoms that still exist. When she returns to the present, Yang still stands almost in a trance of her own, staring out at the barren, moonlit plains. 

“Yang, what’s the matter?”

“Just… thinking. That tall candle near the end…” Yang points. “That’s for the Fall of Beacon, isn’t it?”

“Yes. And the cluster of little ones around it for the Grimm attacks that followed worldwide due to the CCT coverage.”

Yang walks down the row and sits in front of the Beacon candle, waiting for Salem’s remembrance to catch up through the century before it. When she finally arrives, sliding a few inches at a time from one candle to the next, Yang is already holding it. “May I light this one?”

Salem raises one eyebrow. “Do you have the means to?”

Yang clenches her free hand into a fist and concentrates, and in a burst of power her semblance activates, wreathing her long hair in a coating of flame. She looks back, red eyes matching the witch’s own, and says, “I do now.”

Salem puts a hand to the candle’s base as well, and together they touch the wick to Yang’s flaming hair. It ignites instantly, and Yang’s semblance flickers out as she’s whisked into a vision. 

She’s on a rooftop somewhere in Vale. Nevermores and griffons shriek as they pass by overhead, beowolves fill the streets below. In the distance a fire has broken out. And then the ground shakes. Again, and again, and then from the south a dark figure blots out the stars as it flies closer. Her viewpoint follows it as it traces a straight line path toward the Academy, surely seeking the tantalizing crown hidden somewhere beneath. 

And then she’s back in Salem’s castle, safe from the terror and the screams, and the past selves of herself and her friends fighting for their lives somewhere on the plateau above. Her hands are shaking, but they calm with Salem’s touch.

“Why does everything have to be so…  _ gray?” _ she asks, and gets a confused look in response. “It would be so nice if things were black and white. If actions were good, or they were bad, and that was it. The Fall of Beacon was horrible. I was there. But at the same time… eighty years of unprecedented peace could have brought on the end of the world, if Ozpin had rounded up the Maidens and had them open their vaults. It had to be stopped.”

“That’s the struggle I’ve lived with for ten thousand years. Ever since humanity returned to this planet, and Ozma told me about his terrible bargain. It’s… well, it’s what my annual candle-lighting is for. To acknowledge all the evil I’ve done in the service of the future’s good. To let there be light, so long as it’s not too much. To live in the gray.”

Salem starts to put the candle down, but hesitates. “But you, Yang… while I drape myself in darkness, you blaze like the sun. Would you like to add a memory of your own to this candle? Your part in the Fall of Beacon, preserved? It would be a little more authentic than what we just saw, which came from Emerald’s recording on her scroll.”

“Uh, I… I guess? How do I do that?”

Salem puts her free hand to Yang’s forehead. “Relive it in your mind, and my magic will take care of the rest.”

“Alright.” Yang grimaces, but closes her eyes to prepare. “Here goes.”

It’s not hard to imagine the street outside that burning building, its plate glass windows all shattered. Even years later, it still haunts her. Her desperation, searching for Blake. The horror in finding her, on the ground with Adam standing over her. Adam’s vow to destroy everything Blake loved, starting with  _ her. _ The way she’d recklessly charged into his trap, lost her arm, and blacked out from the pain, leaving a girl who’d just been stabbed to carry her out of the fire.

That’s where her memory ends, until she half-woke beside Nora and Ren back on the main street leading into Beacon. Yang opens her eyes, and gladly savors the moment to relax in Salem’s embrace. 

“That was… intense,” the witch says. “It certainly captures the event. Thank you.” A thought occurs to her. “Sorry about Adam. I do like faunus liberation movements, but his definitely missed the mark. After he outlived his usefulness at Haven, you and Blake did a good job disposing of him.”

After that there are only a few last flames to kindle: a short one for the few dozen huntsmen murdered in preparation for the attack on Haven, some taller candles for everything going on in Atlas, and then some blanks at the end of the row for planned attacks still yet to come. 

“Is that it? Are we… done?”

“Not quite.” Salem stands and moves behind her usual seat at the table, to the long dais at the end of the room. “One last thing. A closing ceremony, of sorts. Wait here.”

She disappears in a flash of golden light, and then returns with a two foot high stick of white wax in one hand and a knife in the other. She places the new, giant candle into the empty holder in the center of the table, carves out a hole to show the wick within, then pauses. 

“This is the timekeeping candle, the one I remake every year. But it too will contain a memory. All the people and kingdoms you’ve seen here are my victims, and here we honor the first of them: the army I led to confront the Brother Gods. All things considered, it was a tiny force. Just a few thousand souls, out of tens of millions. To be honest, I never really  _ expected _ a victory.”

She glances to Yang, still listening attentively, then continues. “It would have been easy to give in, to accept their terms and be comfortable enough. But that surrender would have saved our lives at the cost of our values, our ideals – it would have imposed a ceiling on the very concept of Choice that they professed to give us. And so, this tiny army, we stood up against an overwhelming force, because to do otherwise would have been unconscionable.”

“And, despite heavy losses – total losses, of far more than we had thought we were gambling – in the end, it was a victory after all. Those unjust gods were not slain, but they departed from the world, and that is enough. And with my continuous effort, it remains enough to this day.”

Salem holds out her hand over the unlit wax. “This candle commemorates those lost in the very first battle to wrest control of this world away from its creators. For Ozma the First, a truly good man.” She stabs the point of the knife into her palm, and lets a drip of blood flow into the hollow. “For all those who stood with me at the end.” Salem twists the knife again to release another trickle of blood. “And for the millions of innocent lives caught in the crossfire.”

Yang winces as Salem tears the blade out of her flesh and blood flows again, only to marvel at the sight of unbroken immortal skin not a second later. Salem clasps her hand around the thick candle and at her invitation, Yang does the same. 

Magic surges through them both, and then Yang is walking through a crowd that parts around her, staring defiantly up at two dragons who know her face and hold nothing but contempt for her personally. 

Thousands of hands light up with untold power, including her own, but not a drop of it reaches its target. The God of Darkness catches that energy in a single massive claw, and squeezes. The God of Light looks away, but makes no move to stop his brother. 

And then, everything is purple, and everything is pain. 

When Yang blinks open her eyes again, the entire candle has turned blood red and its flame is lit. She and Salem both turn in unison to join in a much-needed hug, and linger there for a while until Salem begins to speak again. 

“For this loss and this victory, I light a candle. I let it burn for only a year, as a reminder that my mission to keep the gods away requires constant toil, to prolong this world’s victory and ensure the first world’s loss is not in vain. To be forgotten is a second death, and so for as long as I live, I will carry countless millions with me out of obscurity.”

“Instead of burning oil in my eternal flame, I anoint it with my blood,” she continues, “both as penance, for all the lives my actions have ended, and for fairness, for mine was the only blood not shed in the course of the gods’ vengeance. Three drops per year, that is all, and yet still my body should have bled dry ages ago under the weight of my continued sins. But I am eternal, and so is my memory, and so is my conviction that these sacrifices are not in vain, and that one day I truly will build the paradise that the old gods could not.”

Despite the somber, tragic words, Yang can’t help but find herself smiling as Salem concludes. She nods along, reminded once again of why Salem had earned her respect where Ozpin never could, her faith in her chosen leader and her own past self renewed. 

For a while she is speechless, and only joins Salem in a side embrace as both gaze into the flickering flame. And then, even as she regains her voice, it’s only to say, “That was amazing.”

Salem nods. “Never seems like it, going in, but doing all this really does help. Having rituals like this one helps give an overly long life meaning, and gods know I could use the catharsis every now and then.”

“They’d better  _ not _ know.” Yang laughs at her own joke. “I’m glad I stayed.”

“I’m glad you did too.”

Yang lays her head on Salem’s shoulder. “So… same time next year?”

“Already making plans? I see you’re taking that ‘emotional support agent’ role seriously.”

“Absolutely.” Yang grins, and stretches up to kiss Salem on the cheek. “You’ve been alone too long. I think you need a few decades break.”

Salem turns and pulls Yang closer at the waist, and makes their next kiss on the lips. “You’re right, I do,” she whispers. “And I’ve had enough melancholy for a year. We could both use something a little lighter.”

As they leave, hand in hand, candles flicker and dance along both walls. Each one meaningful and unique, a moment remembered and an experience shared, a symbol both of remorse and resolve. 

The castle is light again now, bright with refracted fire and warm with newfound companionship, vibrant and full of life for the dark days ahead. With spirits rekindled, Salem and her consort can finally take a moment of joy amidst the pain. 

For even the most distant, fragile hope can spur a woman into profound action, and even the dimmest flame is still a light against the gray. 

**Author's Note:**

> !חג חנוכה שמח


End file.
